1 6 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Exposures. There are a few feet of Skaneateles shales un- 

 covered below the limestones in the bed of Murder creek opposite 

 the Losee schoolhouse one and one-fourth miles north of Darien, 

 and also in the bed and banks of Crooked creek a mile west of 

 the schoolhouse. The middle beds are exposed along Cayuga and 

 Little Buffalo creeks I to 2 miles south and east of East Lancaster 

 and also along Buffalo creek west of Blossom. The upper beds and 

 the contact with the succeeding formation are displayed below the 

 dam at Blossom. 



LUDLOWVILLE SHALE 



This formation embraces about 100 feet of soft, light colored 

 shales in which there are interbedded many calcareous concre- 

 tions and concretionary layers, and, near the base, a continuous 

 band of thin limestones. It is capped by a stratum of encrinal 

 limestone that is continuous from Madison county to Lake Erie. 



The term Ludowville shale was adopted by Hall on account of 

 the exposure of these beds at Ludlowville, on Cayuga lake. The 

 calcareous band near the base was described in New York State 

 Museum Bulletin 63 and designated the Centerfield limestone from 

 its favorable exposure in the bed of Shaffer creek at Centerfield 

 in Ontario county. It appears at all exposures of its horizon from 

 that locality westward to Lake Erie varying but little in character 

 except as to the relative thickness of the thin layers of hard lime- 

 stone of which the band is composed. It is usually succeeded by 

 a soft shale containing a great abundance of corals. At Center- 

 field and in the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad cuts 

 2 miles west of East Bethany, the exposures indicate coral reefs 

 of considerable extent. This limestone resembles somewhat the 

 Tichenor limestone that succeeds the Ludlowville shale and at iso- 

 lated exposures has been mistaken for it. It is not represented in 

 the coloring on the map but its position is shown by the north line 

 of the Ludlowville area. 



The beds in the middle part of the Ludlowville are not usually 

 very f ossilif erous, but the upper shales are richer and the concre- 

 tionary layers contain many finely preserved specimens. The lower 

 limestone at Centerfield afforded 92 species and Doctor Grabau's 

 list of Ludlowville fossils from Eighteen Mile creek and vicinity 

 names 120 species, embracing 6 crustaceans, 4 cephalopods, 4 



